Two cases against Shashi Weerawansa fixed for further trial

Two cases filed against Shashi Weerawansa, the wife of National Freedom Front (NFF) Leader Wimal Weerawansa over an incident where Mrs.Weerawansa had fraudulently obtained two passports including a diplomatic passport by submitting forged documents to the Department of Immigration and Emigration were yesterday fixed for further trial by Colombo Chief Magistrate.

Accordingly, the tenth, sixteenth and seventeenth witnesses of the case were noticed to appear in Courts on October 9 by Chief Magistrate Lal Ranasinghe Bandara.

Meanwhile, Deputy Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris raised objections for a request made by defence counsel to temporally release Weerawansa’s passport to travel to China on next month.

However, President’s Counsel Jayantha Weerasinghe informed court that his client is expecting to prepare a new passport and thereby she is required to submit previous passport details. Taking into consideration the facts, the Chief Magistrate ordered that a photo copy of accused’s passport which is currently held under court custody be returned to the defence.

At a previous occasion, in his evidence Indika Herath, an Assistant Commissioner attached to the Department of Registration of Persons had informed Court that Shashi Weerawansa had applied for a National Identity Card (NIC) in the year of 2010 as a person who applying for the first time. He said the accused had submitted her application for a NIC at the age of 39 as a person who never obtained.

When the cases came up before Chief Magistrate Lal Ranasinghe Bandara, the prosecution sought a further date for the trial as the seventh witness in the case was not present in Court.